Various promotional enhancements have been widely used by companies in order to increase the sale of the companies' products. These promotions are employed by both manufacturers and distributors for a wide variety of diverse products. Although these promotional enhancements take many forms, ranging from price reductions, prizes, games, contests, etc., the sole purpose for all of these promotions is to increase the sale of the underlying product.
One of the promotional methods often employed by manufacturers is the inclusion of a prize in either every product container or in selected containers. In order to attain greater market share for product sales, manufacturers and distributors have utilized a variety of different promotional themes, seeking to generate added sales for their particular products. In doing so, the premium or prize-like promotion has progressed from inexpensive give-aways packed in every product bearing container or package to expensive prize awards which are packed in selected containers or packages. If possible, prize bearing containers are randomly distributed with non-prize bearing containers.
Although these various promotional vehicles have become very popular with some types of products, the ability of certain types of products to be able to use a prize award directly associated with the product has been extremely limited. In this regard, only prize awards which can be separately packaged in acceptable containers or packages and then inserted with the product being distributed have been capable of being commercially feasible. As a result, many products have been incapable of enjoying the benefits derived from promotional vehicles commonly employed with other types of product. Due to this inability, manufacturers or distributors of numerous products have been incapable of employing an effective product sales incentive in order to generate increased interest and sales for their respective products.
In particular, one product area which has been incapable of enjoying the benefits derived from a high value prize promotion is found in the distribution and sale of multi-pack products or assemblies, namely products which are sold in a plurality of independent containers, each of which are integrally interconnected with each other to form a single package or assembly. Although attempts have been made to offer prize awards in multi-pack products, the prize awards have typically been low value, inexpensive prizes which are distributed in each multi-pack product/container.
Due to the cost and potential threat of theft, high value prize awards have never been distributed in multi-pack products or containers. Furthermore, no prior art system has been able to provide a high value prize awards system which is capable of being secretly retained in a multi-pack product/assembly. In this way, prize bearing multi-pack products/assemblies can be randomly distributed with non-prize bearing multi-pack products/assemblies, or high value prizes or electronic prize means can be secretly retained in the multi-pack products/assemblies.
Therefore, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a promotional system which is capable of being employed easily and conveniently in connection with a wide variety of consumer products, such as multi-pack food and beverage products.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a prize awarding system and promotional method having the characteristic features described above which is capable of being implemented in a simple, straightforward manner, without requiring changes in manufacturing processes for the products being promoted.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a prize awarding system and promotion al method having the characteristic features described above which enables virtually any consumer oriented multi-pack product to be easily promoted in a contest which generates a high level of interest and excitement.
Other and more specific objects will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter.